Far From Anywhere

“But I am poor and needy; yet the LORD thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.” Psalm 40:17

When I was young, I was a strong swimmer. I was at home in the water, having lived near a beach, having friends with pools, and especially because of my family’s boat docked in a bay. We kids often would dive off the docks into the waters to cool off or retrieve something that fell overboard. I was never afraid to take the boat into the deepest ocean, with stretches of no land in sight for miles, because I felt that I could swim back to shore if we sunk. As an adult, I know I probably could not have done it; nevertheless, swimming skills gave me bravado.

Injuries and years have taken their toll. I can keep my head above water now, and dog paddle to the edge of a pool if needed, but I prefer a raft to float on, and that’s about the limit of my swimming prowess. Lesson learned: if I want to be safe, I acknowledge my limits and stay within them.

But what if I really was in a boat far from anywhere, and the boat began to sink? I would cry out for a raft to be thrown in my direction, or pool noodle, or life jacket—anything to make me feel safe again. And this is the point: when we can do for ourselves, we don’t need help; when we can’t save ourselves, we cry out.

Have you been in a place of needing rescue? Have you been without needed resources to keep going? Have you been afraid for your life, your health, or your provision? Have you seen these necessities slipping away, as if taken by the tide out, out, and further out into the waters?

F.B. Meyer puts this in perspective. “The education of our faith is incomplete if we have not learned that there is a providence of loss, a ministry of failing and of fading things, a gift of emptiness.” And what is that gift of emptiness? It is crying out for help from God—for His rescue or renewal of what has been lost, of doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves.

Meyer goes on to say something quite profound: “God’s hard words are never His last words. The woe and the waste and the tears of life belong to the interlude and not to the finale.”

We must suffer, else we will never learn hard lessons taught only in that classroom of tears and sighs. We must experience the hard parts of life so that we will be better women, closer to Jesus, more reliant on God, more tuned to the Holy Spirit’s comforts and promptings.

Our hope is in God, who made heaven and earth, and reigns over all things in our lives.

Father, make us trust You more. Bring what You must, that we might learn to look to You in all things. Amen.